Oh it's excellent. If you liked the base game there's every reason to get this add-on and the update that goes with it. These scenarios are very well designed and tested and they are fun. Don't hesitate.

Well, tried an easy one first and sailed to victory then on to Bagration which is listed as hard. Got it on the second try. I remember tearing my hair out with Veronezh in the first release and that one was easy. I won't be playing this one much. Too bad because I was kind of looking forward to it. I am glad matrix did release it and it didn't set me back much. At least they didn't give in to the wimps who whined about no take back move function. Oh, we'll, you got to kiss a lot of frogs...

Obtw, I am lame and retarded in most games and my easy victories should rightfully raise eyebrows.

Well, tried an easy one first and sailed to victory then on to Bagration which is listed as hard. Got it on the second try. I remember tearing my hair out with Veronezh in the first release and that one was easy. I won't be playing this one much. Too bad because I was kind of looking forward to it. I am glad matrix did release it and it didn't set me back much. At least they didn't give in to the wimps who whined about no take back move function. Oh, we'll, you got to kiss a lot of frogs...

Obtw, I am lame and retarded in most games and my easy victories should rightfully raise eyebrows.

It is a qualified no. I really looked forward to the expansion & really like the game but I am wondering if they dumbed it down to bump sales. What I liked about the original was the difficulty. it took a lot to win. With Red Turn it is really like just pushing the pieces in the right direction and things go well. In the first edition this was not the case. It took a lot in order to win & now the AI is a push over. Maybe I am just lucky but I don't want to waltz to victory. I want the challenge back.

Life is not always black & white I am finding as I go. Wish I could give you an unqualified answer but there it is.

I won't be playing much more of the game. I will graze on to greener pastures. Life is good.

It is a qualified no. I really looked forward to the expansion & really like the game but I am wondering if they dumbed it down to bump sales. What I liked about the original was the difficulty. it took a lot to win. With Red Turn it is really like just pushing the pieces in the right direction and things go well. In the first edition this was not the case. It took a lot in order to win & now the AI is a push over. Maybe I am just lucky but I don't want to waltz to victory. I want the challenge back.

Life is not always black & white I am finding as I go. Wish I could give you an unqualified answer but there it is.

I won't be playing much more of the game. I will graze on to greener pastures. Life is good.

I did 2nd Iassy-Kishinev right out of the box & got it right away. I then looked at a couple of the medium ones but thought Bagration would be a good test. It is not. And it is not hard. Maybe I am being a little harsh in my judgement. I will mess around with it some more.

I found the scenarios in the original devilishly difficult. It took me a number of attempts before I was able to achieve victory in each scenario & the easy ones were easier than the medium ones and the medium ones were easier than the hard ones. I was reluctant to fess up to this because there are always jerks who will post how easy such-and-such is. I am not in that camp. I literally tore my hair out getting victories in the original (now, there, the whole world knows).

I really like this game engine. I am a bit disappointed on the basis of my early experience as above but will play more to re-evaluate. I will also go back to the original & play some of those. This is a gem of a game engine.

Please don't get me wrong. I am not slamming the game at all. Just the balance on a couple of the scenarios. I am not sorry I purchased at all (just look at my purchase history at matrix if you must). Keep up the good work.

Lvov-Sandomierz took about 4-5 tries and I fell a turn short on most. It is challenging. I would indeed rate it as Easy compared to the ones I remember from the 1942 campaign.

I also realized I am evaluating the scenarios which in reality are meant to be played as part of a campaign. I don't really have time to devote to a campaign because my gaming time is very restricted.

What continues to amaze me about this excellent game engine is how different each of my attempts turned out to be. I tried different approaches. I have not re-read the manual & I have been shooting from the hip taking my lumps as part of the re-familiarization process but the variety is fun.

If & when I get the chance I will post about some of the other scenarios.

Dale dont forget when you played the base game you didn't know the system at all. You are already an experienced player and I imagine if you went back to the early UoC scenarios you'd find them easier than you remember now.

That may be true. I will try some old ones out to see. But Bagration is really easy even compared to Lvov-Sandomierz. Maybe it was just that one. I will play around to see. Still having fun. I may have over-reacted. Still a great game. The 1941 campaign would be great.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Iain McNeil

Dale dont forget when you played the base game you didn't know the system at all. You are already an experienced player and I imagine if you went back to the early UoC scenarios you'd find them easier than you remember now.

That may be true. I will try some old ones out to see. But Bagration is really easy even compared to Lvov-Sandomierz. Maybe it was just that one. I will play around to see. Still having fun. I may have over-reacted. Still a great game. The 1941 campaign would be great.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Iain McNeil

Dale dont forget when you played the base game you didn't know the system at all. You are already an experienced player and I imagine if you went back to the early UoC scenarios you'd find them easier than you remember now.

I liked the game when it first came out and I'm enjoying this new DLC. I concur with Dale, the 1941 campaign would be a blast to play.

The campaign is a horse of a different color. I am back to getting my face ripped off & loving it. Best way to enjoy the game is through the campaign. I am immersed & happy. My apologies about posting previous impressions without doing the campaign.

Some scenarios were made less difficult (victory turn limit increased by 1 turn mostly) because of the weather engine giving unseasonal results from time to time. After a discussion with the rest of the team, it was decided that the scenarios should be a bit less difficult if the weather can seriously ruin a scenario, because we don't want people investing their time a scenario they can't possibly win due to no fault of their own because the weather goes to mud on the final objective hex. This was particularly bad for a scenario like Crossing the Dnieper, where during one test I got mud on the final objective hex 4 out of 5 tries which made it impossible to win a BV. That's also why the difficulty of Dnepr/Donbas was downscaled in the original: because in some situations it could be just plain impossible to win a BV.

The scenarios might also feel like they're easier because, in reality, the Soviet superiority in quantity of units and equipment by 1944-1945 was more significant in relative terms than the German advantage in quality was in 1942. As the Germans in 1942, you still needed to pound through a fairly substantial Soviet force in many scenarios. In many Red Turn scenarios the Germans have their historical amount of reserves: none to possibly a small one if they're lucky.

Also note that the difficulty refers to getting the best possibly victory (capturing all objectives on time), not simply winning the scenario. We also try to make the game interesting for a wide audience (and no, not just because of sales, also out of passion as we try to make a good product that can be enjoyed by both grognards and casual (war)gamers), as there was an enormous variation in how quickly people finished scenarios in the original. In general, the BV is at the turn where I can complete the scenario without serious influence from the weather (which can have a helping or handicapping influence).

Due to the lack of German reserves, it was difficult for me to get the difficulty where I wanted it to be. As Iain mentioned, if you know the system the DLC won't be all that difficult compared to how difficult the original was when you just started playing it. For people who are new to the game, I expect that numerous scenarios will be challenging, although as implied earlier the overall difficulty of the campaign isn't that high, around medium in my opinion.

Red turn is a great expansion to the base game! If you have the base game, than purchasing Red Turn is a no brainer IMHO

I absolutely agree with you! I am very happy with this expansion pack and hope another game/expansion pack using this same game engine is in our future! Perhaps a romp through North Afrika with the Desert Fox?!!

I really like the game engine, but to me this game seems (as does the panzer general series) to be somewhat puzzle-oriented. Because of the small maps, tight timing of objectives, it feels less like an operational wargame than a series of puzzles. I stopped playing the new panzer corp series because the difficulty became high, the scenarios felt like puzzles and the scenario designers seemed more interested in puzzle-design than historical accuracy/feel. I get the same sense when I play the new expansion for this excellent game engine although not as strongly.

I don't want to feel like I have to practice and synchronize every move because there are so few units, small map, and little operational freedom.

So...I'd like to cast a vote for bigger maps, longer scenarios, and less puzzle feel, maybe some choice of objectives. It's a good game, but to me this would be an improvement.

Well, with a game system and scale like this, you'll always have "puzzle" scenarios and some more open-ended scenarios. The main reason why I didn't make truly long scenarios is because they're nearly impossible to make them balanced and historically accurate at the same time. That's why you advance operation by operation and sometimes encounter the same units over and over. In a long campaign, that wouldn't be possible and the game would become much easier.

Ive stated this before, The AI does two things. It tries to cut your supply. It will sacrifice many units to do this. Failing that, it will huddle around the Objectives! I've had games where both sides supply was cut off. Then what? Neither can do anything! You lose because you didn't capture your objectives, so the AI doesn't care if there is not any supply! If units were worth some victory points, then you could not sacrifice units so easily. All of this takes away the Historical side of the game. It's a neat system, BUT???

Ive stated this before, The AI does two things. It tries to cut your supply. It will sacrifice many units to do this. Failing that, it will huddle around the Objectives! I've had games where both sides supply was cut off. Then what? Neither can do anything! You lose because you didn't capture your objectives, so the AI doesn't care if there is not any supply! If units were worth some victory points, then you could not sacrifice units so easily. All of this takes away the Historical side of the game. It's a neat system, BUT???

I think the idea of the AI attacking and/or defending is the strengths of the AI programming.... It either attacks , defends or sometimes both.

IMHO, a dynamic AI is the art of computer war game programming... these guys have succeeded.

I could get the best score in every single scenario of both campaign from the vanilla game. But I would say that some campaign scenarios of Red Turn are very hard, and I haven't yet find a way to get a perfect score. The Red Turn campaign start with some moderate and easy scenarios, but starting with scenario 6 Korsun Rovno things gets really difficult. The upgraded elite PanzerDivisionen (with the Panther icon) are extremly hard to dislodge from key victory hexs. Scenario 7 Leningrad is also hard although infantry only and despite massive artillery supports.